About us

For about 15 years SYNAPSE Science Center is at the market of seismological and geophysical software for data acquisition, transmission and processing systems. Its portfolio consists of dozens of products and R&D projects. Its application software and integration solutions work for universities, governmental agencies and private companies all over the world.

History

SYNAPSE Science Center was founded in 1990 by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and IRIS Consortium (Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology, USA). SYNAPSE is a modern R&D and telecommunication center built around the network based on SUN Microsystems servers and workstations. From the very beginning SYNAPSE became an access node of the Russian Academic Computer Network RELARN - a project connecting leading Moscow research and communication centers to Internet via fiber-optic infrastructure (Moscow Backbone project). Opening IRIS MDC (Moscow Data Center) on SYNAPSE basis in 1991 was a great international event, special guests from the US Congress, US Universities and Russian Academy of Sciences attended ( Iris Open Data Analysis Center in Moscow ). MDC was an IRIS Data Management System node for 15 years, being at the same time a communication, research and software development institution. Since that time dozens of domestic and international software development and integration projects were accomplished.

Work experience

SYNAPSE's employees have a longstanding experience in the area of information systems, distributed databases and networks development and support, including multi-user environment programming. SYNAPSE Science Center has been and still is a system developer for the governmental and academic organizations, such as Ministry of Defense of Russian Federation, ROSATOM, Russian Basic Research foundation, Ministry for Science and Technology (presently Ministry for Science and Education), Ministry for Emergent Situation of Russian Federation, Russian Academy of Sciences and others. The SYNAPSE Science Center was entitled to be the principle contractor for the software development within the framework of the Disarmament Conference's Group of Scientific Experts Third Technical Test (GSETT-3) by the Russian Federation regulation N. 293 of 16/03/1996. In 1997 installation of seismic monitoring software developed by SYNAPSE started at sites of the Special Control Service of Russian Federation's MOD. Currently SYNAPSE's software is a program core of National Data Center of Russian Federation functioning within the framework of Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaties, www.ctbto.org. SYNAPSE has a lot of foreign customers.

Software

Some of our customers are: IRIS Consortium (www.iris.edu), the Science Application International Corporation (SAIC, www.saic.com), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (www.llnl.gov), Philips Laboratory (USAF), US Geological Service (www.cr.usgs.gov), the NATO European Office for AeroSpace Research and Development (EOARD), Refraction Technology (REF TEK, www.reftek.com). Our interactive and real-time data processing software for TCP/IP networks are currently installed in Russia, United States, Norway, France, India, Mexico, Israel and other countries. SYNAPSE has a vast experience in working with open systems. The major Center products are developed on the basis of heterogeneous local and global networks, including SUN, VAX, IBM and Apple servers and workstations, functioning in UNIX (SCO Unix, Solaris, Linux, MacOS), and Microsoft environments. Our engineers have a wide experience of transferring homogeneous software to the heterogeneous distributed platforms; DBMS information systems use Oracle, Mimer, Postgres as backend at UNIX servers. Our developments are focused for the compatibility with international standards.

Seismic and Geophysical monitoring

Our main expertise is development and support of local and global seismic monitoring systems. In 1993 we started our first, a three-year Caspian basin seismic monitoring project at the territories of Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, in cooperation with Cambridge University (Great Britain, PI is Dr. Keith Priestley) with Phillips Labs support, in the framework of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaties. Unique geophysical real-time monitoring software developed by SYNAPSE (ссылка на SNDA) allowed automatically detecting, identifying and locating either remote or local signals even in the presence of natural or industrial seismic background. Different versions of the system work in Russia and in other countries. Among recent projects: Temelin NPP (nuclear power plant) seismic monitoring system nearby Czech/Austria border, national seismic hazard notification system in Bulgaria, regional seismic monitoring system in Greece, regional seismic monitoring system in India, Asam state. Since 1996 SYNAPSE (supported by IRIS) provides logistic, technical and telecommunication support for Global Seismic Network (GSN) data collection from the USGS Siberian and Far East subnet (Internet-based) - GSN. Our mobile portable and telemetry ecological and geophysical monitoring systems based on REF TEK state of the art data loggers are used for various experimental researches especially in oil and gas industry for passive (microseismic) monitoring. SYNAPSE performed a number of experimental and basic researches for both home and foreign customers (Shell Research BV).

Perimeter Guarding

In the end of the 90-s a substantial experience in the geophysical and seismological software development was transferred to the area of perimeter protection and mobile patrol systems development, in particular on the basis of commercial digitizers (www.reftek.com). Our software for permanent, mobile and embedded (DSP) systems provides effective real-time identification of human, animals as well as technical moving targets (planes, helicopters, vehicles, etc.) and notification of authorized personnel via any communication media, including mobile communication. Geophysical systems developed and integrated in SYNAPSE (with seismic, acoustic and magnetometric registration) are used in mission critical governmental projects (Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation).

Communications

SYNAPSE's engineers have wide experience in organization and exploitation of communication systems, from public switched circuit to satellite and fiber-optic channels. Our pioneering development was creation of IntelPort international voice-mail and fax network based on our PhoneServer(ТМ) software in the middle of the 90-s, at that time mobile communication was just starting to develop. Besides IntelPort, information systems based on PhoneServer for UNIX was installed in the Avtobank, Labor and Employment Department of Moscow Administration, Sheremetyevo (Cargo) Airport, and in a number of private companies. At this basis SYNAPSE has developed a distributed computer-telephone system of alert notification (rescue service, in particular) for such organizations as the Emergency Situations Ministry, Defense Ministry and similar authorities.